A WOMAN released from prison at the end of a 12-year murder sentence said she would carry on fighting to clear her name.

Susan May has always denied beating and smothering her 89-year-old aunt Hilda Marchbank at the pensioner's home in Royton, near Oldham, in 1992.

Yesterday she walked through the gates of Askham Grange prison, near York, after the parole board said she should be released on licence.

She is believed to have made legal history as the first ``lifer'' to be released at the earliest possible parole date while maintaining her innocence.

Mother-of-three Mrs May, who spent her first day of freedom visiting the grave of her aunt and of her own mother, who died while she was in behind bars, said: "It's good to be free, but my heart is heavy, I am still a convicted person.

Cleared

"I am not a murderer. I will not rest until my name has been cleared.

"There are people in the area who know what really happened and who have not come forward. They know who they are.

"They have kept me in prison for a crime I did not commit."

Mrs May was Mrs Marchbank's carer and managed her financial affairs.

She took a meal to her house on the night of March 11, 1992, and says she found her body when she returned in the morning.

But she was arrested during a lengthy police investigation.

The prosecution at her trial claimed her handprints had been found in one of three blood stains on the wall next to Mrs Marchbank's body.

They said she killed her so she could spend her money on her boyfriend. She was jailed for 12 years on May 5, 1993.

Campaign

They claimed her aunt was killed by intruders in a bungled burglary. Witnesses at the time said they had seen a red car outside the house.

She disputes the forensic evidence presented at the trial.

The grandmother-of-five has lost two appeals, but the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which was set up to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice, is looking at the evidence again.

It could soon decide that she should get the opportunity to go back to the High Court in London for an unprecedented third appeal. A number of MPs have now backed her campaign.

Dorothy Cooksey, for the Friends of Susan May Group, said her supporters would carry on working to clear her name.

She said: "We have been Susan's voice for many years, but now she will be able to use her own voice to speak out and campaign for justice."